Keyboard
by Mad Writer in Manila
Summary: "If you need me, I will be downstairs with the keyboard. You can call and I probably will not hear you, because it is loud with my earphones on, but you will be okay, because you will be upstairs with the TV. You can cry and I probably will not hear you, because it is loud with my earphones on." Based loosely on "Shop Vac", particularly spiffworld's video of it. Frying Pangle.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: This fanfic is based on "Shop Vac", a song by Jonathan Coulton about the boredom and monotony of suburban life and obsession to fill the void. If you have not heard of it, I suggest that you listen to it, although it is not necessary to enjoy this story. There is an amusing and amazing kinetic typography lyrics video of it on YouTube. **

**Warnings: human AU, human names used, Austria's morbid thoughts**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia nor do I own Shop Vac or even an actual shop vac**

**Human Names: Roderich - Austria; Elizabeta - Hungary; Gilbert - Prussia; Feliciano - Italy; Lovino - Romano; Ludwig - Germany**

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Lovino asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time during their trip and it surely wasn't going to be the last time he would ask.

Sighing, Roderich looked at the rear-view mirror and saw his seven-year-old son lying upside down on the backseat, arms crossed and feet drumming against the backrest. That was no way to be sitting in a car. If he was to stop suddenly, Lovino would be thrown forward and he was sure that the boy would break his neck. A few miles back, he had tried to stick his head out the window and, before that, he had decided to entertain himself by bouncing a ball against the windshield. It seemed to him that his son was doing this on purpose just to annoy him. Roderich was certain that this trip would be the death of him.

"You'll break your neck and die if you don't sit properly," he said, not even trying to make it sound less morbid; he'd given up on that kilometres ago when Lovino had thrown the door open while the car was travelling at one hundred thirteen kilometres per hour on the highway.

"Are we there yet?" Lovino asked again, seeming to purposefully ignore what he had just said.

"Not yet, but soon," Roderich said, struggling to keep his voice even. "Now, would you sit properly and put on your seatbelt?"

Without even giving an indication that he heard his father at all, Lovino shifted and curled up on his side. He was such a difficult child; he could, at least, try to be like four-year-old Feliciano, sleeping peacefully in his booster seat. Well, it wasn't what he had been asked to do, but it was better than lying upside down. At least, he couldn't break his neck like this.

Roderich turned his full attention back on the road. There were houses now, neatly-spaced, with green lawns and near identical construction. Neat wooden fences that all looked alike separated the houses from each other, giving the appearance of order and uniformity. They were almost there. He only needed to endure this a little longer.

Expertly, he pulled into the driveway of a white house with blue-grey shingles on the roof and a swing on the porch. A banner with "welcome" written in silver glitter on it hung above the door, as lop-sided as it was when he tacked it on a few days ago. The entire house looked exactly as it had been when he had last seen it, except for the shuttlecock that rested on the edge of the porch's roof.

As he killed the engine, he noticed, not for the first time during their stressful trip, how his fingers were nearly white from gripping the steering wheel too tightly. They shook slightly as the blood rushed back into them, an odd sensation that seemed to feel like fire and ice filling his veins at the same time. The day had been much too unkind to him and it didn't seem like it would get any better if the shuttlecock was any indication.

"We're here," he said tiredly. "Finally."

His nerves were so frayed that he nearly jumped when he felt a warm hand gently squeeze his shoulder. He turned and saw Elizabeta smiling at him, her face bearing no indication of weariness at all. The way the afternoon sun cast a faint glow around her made her almost seem like an angel who had come to take all his troubles away.

"Don't be stressed," she told him. "We're here now. It's good to start things right,"

Roderich managed a small smile. "You are probably right," he said, trying to sound less tired than before.

"Dad, there's a strange man climbing the fence!" Lovino suddenly announced at the top of his lungs.

Surely enough, when Roderich turned his head to look at where his son was pointing, there was a pale, white-haired, red-eyed young man with his left leg hooked over the nearly five foot tall fence while struggling to swing his other leg up and over. He had seen the boy a few days ago when he had supervised the movers. He had been watching intently from the other side of the fence while the movers unloaded furniture and boxes from the van, occasionally shouting out a joke or an insult, but being mostly ignored.

"He looks stuck," Elizabeta said, opening the car door, probably to go help him.

Before she could step out of the car, Roderich was already outside. "I'll see what I can do," he said and walked up to the teenager on their fence.

"Oh, hey," the boy said with a heavy accent which sounded like it could have been from some region in Germany. "You're the guy who bought the house, right? I remember your face from Tuesday." He smiled widely. "I'm the awesome Gilbert, by the way. You probably heard about me when they sold you the house."

"I've not," Roderich replied.

Gilbert's smile disappeared for a moment, but was soon back. "They probably left me out on purpose to surprise you," he said.

"Do you need any help?" Roderich asked, his voice betraying his lack of interest in Gilbert's babbling. He really didn't even want to help, but he had to unless he wanted a teenager as a fence ornament; he would definitely make a nice Halloween decoration once he was skeletonized, but Roderich wasn't really a fan of the flies the pungent smells of decay attracted and the police would certainly have something to say about it.

For a few moments, Gilbert continued to struggle with his other leg while muttering something about self-amputation using gardening tools.

"No thanks," he said. Planting one hand firmly on the top of the fence, he grabbed his right leg with his other hand, pulled it over and tumbled into their side.

Roderich stood over the boy sprawled facedown on their lawn. "I would like to ask why you were trying to climb over the fence, in the first place."

"Is he hurt?" Elizabeta's voice was both concerned and amused as she approached them and, when Roderich turned towards her face, he could see that she was struggling not to laugh.

Gilbert slowly pushed himself up on his elbows and spit out the grass that had managed to get into his mouth. Once he had spit it all out, the smile returned as if he had never fallen off the fence in the first place.

"I'm okay, ma'am," he said, his smile widening as he looked up at Elizabeta. "I've had worse falls."

"If you say so…" Elizabeta said, the hint of amusement in her voice growing.

Gilbert's smile widened even more. "Gilbert," he introduced himself. "My name's Gilbert."

"Mommy!" Lovino called, making all their heads turn towards the car where Lovino was leaning out of the window and waving his arms around. "Feliciano had a nightmare again!"

With a sigh, Elizabeta headed back towards the car. "It was nice meeting you, Gilbert," she said over her shoulder as she left.

There was something about the way Gilbert's gaze continued to follow Elizabeta with that smile plastered on his face that made Roderich feel as if the teenager was flirting with his wife. He suppressed the thought before it could even take root. It was a ridiculous and highly implausible notion that he shouldn't even entertain.

"I'll ask you again," he said, pushing away the remains his nonsensical thoughts and holding his hand out to Gilbert. "Why were you trying to climb over the fence?"

Gilbert grabbed his hand and pulled himself up, almost making the two of them topple over as he did so. "Danke," he mumbled, still looking at Elizabeta.

"Are you going to answer me or not?" Roderich asked, taking an authoritative voice. He was exasperated with the teenager, who seemed to become distracted with the smallest of things. He wanted to ask Gilbert about the status of his mental health, but that would be rude and unnecessarily cruel of him; it would be the wrong way to start things off, Elizabeta would say.

"Oh, right!" Gilbert said, tearing his eyes away from Elizabeta. "The shuttlecock!" He pointed at the shuttlecock balancing on the porch roof with seemingly no intention of ever falling down. "It got stuck on your roof. I was coming over to get it."

From the moment he saw it, Roderich had known that the shuttlecock would cause him trouble and he had just been proven right; he wished that he had been wrong, as much as he loved being right. "If I get it for you, would you please go away?" he asked, desperate for some peace and quiet.

"Your wife is hot!" Gilbert said, completely ignoring his words, his eyes plastered on Elizabeta once more. "How far along is she?"

"Seven months," Roderich answered absentmindedly, almost like a recorded message. Then, Gilbert's first statement finally registered and all coherent thoughts just seemed to dissipate into thin air, leaving him sputtering unintelligibly in his native Austrian German. "Would you listen to me and stop talking about my pregnant wife like that?" he finally managed to say in English. "I also do not appreciate you ogling her."

"Seven months, hm?" Gilbert said thoughtfully, once more seeming to completely ignore Roderich despite the older man's agitated gibbering just a few moments ago. "Looking pretty good, isn't she?"

That last part made Roderich more uncomfortable than it should have; he had been hearing that a lot these days, but never from a teenager who seemed like he was trying to say more than, "No, you're not fat, Mrs. Edelstein". Gilbert, however, just continued to stare at Elizabeta as if there was nothing wrong about what he had been saying about another man's wife. After all, there was nothing wrong with looking, as far as he was concerned.

"Would you leave if I get you the shuttlecock?" Roderich repeated. Hopefully, Gilbert wouldn't ignore him this time.

"Yeah, sure," Gilbert said dismissively.

Roderich was just about to go find a stick to get the shuttlecock down and be rid of Gilbert for, hopefully, a very long time when Elizabeta started shouting for the teenager to come over to the car. "I'll let you stay for dinner if you help unload the car," she said.

Just when things seemed like it couldn't get any worse, they just did, at, least, in Roderich's opinion.

"Really?" Gilbert asked in an over-eager voice that was more fitting for somebody much younger. All he needed to do was jump up and down and he would have been indistinguishable from a really tall ten-year-old. And, he did just that, adding a strange sibilant laugh for good measure.

At the moment, Roderich just wanted to go find a stone wall and bang his head repeatedly against it until his brain went completely numb.

"Stop that!" he heard Elizabeta shout. "You're going to break it!"

He looked up to see Gilbert trying to fit a large, rectangular box covered in brown paper through the door sideways. Elizabeta was now beside him, holding one side of the box so he couldn't bang it against the doorframe again.

"Flip it around like a normal person would!" Elizabeta said through gritted teeth in a voice Roderich knew to tread carefully around or suffer the consequences.

Gilbert, however, didn't seem to be quick enough to catch its meaning. "But it's labelled, 'This side up'," he argued. "It will break if I flip it around."

"You're breaking it now!" Elizabeta growled at him. "And, I wrote that label. Flip it around now or I'll tear those pretty eyes of yours out of their sockets and feed them to you."

"Yes, ma'am," Gilbert quickly said as he hurried inside with the package.

There was something about the way Gilbert smiled as Elizabeta threatened him that made it seem like he actually enjoyed the notion of forced auto-cannibalism or just pain in general. Of course, it was another ridiculous thought, but the last "ridiculous thought" Roderich had turned out to be more real than he ever wanted it to be. If he was right, something that he was beginning to hate more and more by the second, then, more than before, he would want to bash his head against the nearest hard surface just to end it all right there.

The side of the house seemed like it would be a good place to crack his skull against, but, much to his dismay, his plans were interrupted by a tiny hand tugging on his pants leg.

"Mein Bruder went over to get a shuttlecock a while ago and he hasn't come back yet," said a child's voice with a pronounced German accent.

Roderich looked down to see a small blond child, probably around Feliciano's age, staring up at him with the most serious look in his almost comically determined blue eyes. Just when he thought that his troubles couldn't get any worse, a new one, also known as Gilbert's little brother, had to show up, probably just to prolong his misery; fate was definitely having fun torturing him that day. Given the situation, Roderich almost wanted to burst out laughing and sobbing at the same time, but that wasn't very much like him at all.

"I'll go get it for you," he said, hoping that the little boy's arrival was somehow a blessing in disguise instead of an addition to his torture. "Just wait there and don't touch anything while I get a stick."

His wish seemed as if it might be granted when the boy simply nodded and stood patiently as he retrieved the shuttlecock.

"Danke schön," the boy said politely.

Most definitely, he was a good boy, the complete opposite of his brother with his seriousness and politeness. It was almost difficult for Roderich to think that the two were even remotely related. He wouldn't have minded if his own sons were more like Gilbert's little brother.

"Ludwig!" Gilbert shouted as he dashed out the front door, seized his brother up and started spinning around. "Tell Opa we're having dinner over at the neighbours' tonight. Help him find his fancy shirt and bring him over in an hour."

"Wait just a second, young man," Roderich said authoritatively, making Gilbert stop his mad little dance. "My wife invited you for dinner, not your entire family."

Gilbert put Ludwig down. "She told me I could bring my family over," he said.

As much as Roderich loved Elizabeta, she often did things without telling him and he always ended up unprepared when she did. "Fine," he said. "Just finish what Elizabeta told you to do."

"Ja!" Gilbert said as he grabbed another set of boxes from the car and ran into the house.

Roderich groaned and sat down on the porch swing.

"He's weird and childish," Elizabeta said, sitting down next to him.

"Who?" Roderich asked, although he was pretty certain who they were talking about at this point.

"Gilbert. He's an idiot," Elizabeta said with a smile. "But he's a good boy underneath it all."

Roderich could only wish that was true.

"Don't worry too much," Elizabeta said, putting her hand over his. "We're starting things right."

* * *

**More Author's Notes: I know somebody is probably complaining about Prussia's age already. Let me clarify. The name Austria was created as a prefecture of Bavaria in the year 976 AD, but, as a bordered area with a Christianized culture, they could have existed as early as early as 788 AD when Charlemagne conquered it. The Magyars established a federation of tribes in the Hungarian plains in 895 AD and Hungary was recognized by the rest of Europe as a patrimonial kingdom in 1000 AD. Prussia, by contrast, was founded in 1525 AD, a good 630 or 525 years after Hungary, depending on how you count it. Even if you consider Prussia to have been the Teutonic Knights earlier, that order was founded in 1190, still 295 or 190 years younger than Hungary as opposed to the 81 or 24 years between Hungary and Austria. If you think about it a little. it would have been more likely that it had been Hungary and Austria who had been childhood friends, or enemies, more likely, since the two nations did, historically, grow up fighting each other in their earlier days, rather than Hungary and Prussia who would have had very little to do with each other outside of Andrew II of Hungary granting fiefdom to the Teutonic Knights and, later, expelling them from Transylvania and one of the three patron saints of the Teutonic Knights being St. Elizabeth of Hungary.**

**As for Hungary's name being spelled Elizabeta in this, I often change how her name is spelled between fanfics from the most popular Elizaveta to the more linguistically and culturally correct Erzsébet to Himaruya's original Elizabeta, as in this. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: Please forgive me for the genealogies in this chapter. I will try to explain myself at the end.**

**Human Names: Athaulf - Germania; Caesar - Rome; Andrei - Romania**

* * *

As far as Roderich could tell, dinner had been an absolute failure, a comedy, even. If there was any sure way to start things wrong, it would have been the farce of a meal they just had. All they needed was to sing and it would have been an opéra bouffe; then, it might have been, at least, enjoyable to watch. Instead, it made him feel like an utter fool to have been part of it.

For much of the dinner, he had tried his best to be civil. After all, Ludwig was a good boy and their grandfather, Athaulf Beilschmidt, a quiet man who spoke only in German the few times he talked, seemed to be a respectable gentleman. It was Gilbert alone that irritated him with the way he kept talking about himself during dinner and how atrocious his table manners were which made it seem as if he had been raised by barbarians. Aside from looking at the teenager sternly and making veiled comments about his upbringing, Roderich had been mostly nice to him. His sons also seemed to be behaving, something unusual these last few months. That was, until Lovino decided that Gilbert's unending blabber was the best excuse to say some rather rude words, which he had doubtlessly picked up from his grandfather. At that moment, the entire table, even Gilbert, went silent and Roderich, red-faced and embarrassed beyond belief, wordlessly excused himself from the table and didn't come back until their neighbours had gone home.

He didn't know if he should cry or get angry. Normally, he would have expressed it through music either way, but they had left his grand piano back at their old home and that only made this so much worse for him.

"Are you still angry at Lovino?" Elizabeta asked as he was setting the dishwasher. "He's only seven-years-old. He didn't know what those words meant. Don't worry. I made him promise he wouldn't use those words again."

"He won't learn if he keeps escaping punishment," Roderich replied somewhat bitterly. "Feliciano should learn a bit of discipline, too, sometimes," he added. "He should stop acting like a baby."

"Do try to understand your sons," Elizabeta said and tugged him towards the living room. "They just lost their grandfather. It's a difficult time for them."

Roderich let himself be pulled out of the kitchen. "Yes, I know," he said. "I was just hoping that moving to a new house would help."

"Give them some time," Elizabeta said as she forced him to sit down on the sofa. "It'll get better. I promise. For now, just open this." She placed the rectangular box across his lap. "Gilbert tried to force it sideways through the door, so the box might be a little battered, but it should still work. Go on. Open it."

Roderich tore away the brown paper and beheld the glossy image of a black electronic keyboard printed on the box.

"Elizabeta, I…" He could boast of a vast vocabulary any other time, but, right now, he couldn't think of a good enough word to express how thankful he was to have someone like her.

It didn't matter. Elizabeta already seemed to know what he had left unspoken. "Aren't you going to play it?" she asked with a smile.

With a nod, he removed the keyboard from its box and plugged it into the nearest socket.

"Since it appears that we'll be here for a while, I shall play the piano to pass the time. Does the signorina have any specific piece she would like to hear?" he asked her in Italian, repeating the words he had said many years ago when they had just first met.

For a moment, Elizabeta seemed to be deep in thought, although it was evident in her mischievous smile that she was playing along. "Could you play La Campanella by Franz Liszt for me, signor?" she asked in exactly the same way she did back then.

They had met because of music. She had been the estranged, half-Hungarian daughter of a wealthy Italian painter attempting to reconnect with her father after the death of her mother. He had been a fresh graduate with a degree in music trying to introduce his talent to the world. Elizabeta's father, Caesar Vargas, a patron of all arts, had heard him play the piano at a small theatre and had invited him to perform at his daughter's welcoming party. It was at Caesar's mansion that they had first met, her on the dance floor with her half-Romanian half-brother and him at the piano. She liked his music, but she probably wouldn't have given him a second thought and he wouldn't have even noticed her, if not for Andrei insisting that she meet the young pianist after the party and, subsequently, locking them in the ballroom, forcing them to spend two hours with nothing to do but get to know each other. It had been painfully and awkwardly quiet, at first, until he decided to play something for her and their conversation started off with Liszt. When somebody finally opened the door, they were already talking like they had been friends for a long time.

One of these days, Roderich would have to thank Andrei for locking them in, although he knew better than to encourage him.

"Liszt would be wonderful, signorina," he said and began to play.

The plastic keys felt strange and fragile beneath his fingers, unlike the ivory and ebony keys he was accustomed to. It almost felt like the keyboard would break if he played it too roughly. Even the music it produced, a soulless, unchanging sound, was strange. It was a weak, lifeless sound that he didn't like. Whereas his grand piano had produced music so full of life and beauty, this keyboard produced a crystallized, preserved sound that was beautiful but dead at its core. He couldn't deny that it tried it's best to mimic a piano, attempting to replicate its vibrations, but one can only do so much with sampled sound and, ultimately, it failed, much like how a funeral artist tries to make a corpse appear like a sleeping person, but, in the end, it appears doll-like and unnerving. As he ended the piece, the music did not linger in his ears, clinging to existence for even a few precious moments, but died abruptly without a struggle, as dead things were wont.

"That was beautiful, signor!" Elizabeta said in Italian, her voice filled with admiration, still playing the nineteen-year-old heiress she had been years and years ago.

That was all Roderich needed to hear and he could almost forget the dead sound. "Would you like for me to play another one?"

* * *

**More Author's Notes: The main reason for making Hungary related to Rome in this is because of its historically deeply Catholic, hence Roman, influence and also to allow her to be the Italies' biological mother in this; Austria could have also been a candidate for that due to its claim at being the heir of the Holy Roman Empire which had been the heir of the Roman Empire before it. Romania is also influenced by the Roman culture, most evident in its Romance language, which is actually closest to classical Latin among the Romance languages. Anyway, it is a human AU so I might have some level of leeway.**

**Let me explain why Austria and Hungary were speaking in Italian in this. Since, in the story, they had met at Rome's mansion in Italy, which would have made it a likely language to have conversed in, probably because they were in Italy and assuming that the other spoke Italian, presupposing that Hungary learned it to speak with her father and Austria must have known some of it to have been able to converse with Caesar.**

**As for the names, I often change the names of characters who have no official names, especially the Ancients, between stories. Andrei is a typical Romanian name and was selected mostly to avoid Vladimir, which seems more common in the fandom. Rome was named after Julius Caesar, a famous Roman general you probably all know about from world history class, as well as the name that Roman emperors styled themselves with. In other stories, I had called him Romulus. Germania, on the other hand, was named for a more obscure historical figure, Athaulf. In other stories, he had been called Adalbert and Alaric. ****So, who is Athaulf and why had that name been chosen, you may ask? Historically, Athaulf was the King of the Visigoths and he is most remembered for his dream of reviving the glory of the fallen Roman empire with a new Gothic vigour. As a fun fact, it is also the predecessor of the name Adolf, meaning "noble wolf". **


End file.
